The General Apprehension.
CARDINAL CULLEN of Dublin, Ireland, has issued a pastoral bewailing the condition and prospects of the Pope, as apparently about to be driven from the Holy City, and ordering a day of fasting and prayer that these evils may be averted. The cardinal says that when the French troops leave Rome “then will the agents of the excommunicated king of Sardinia and of the secret societies re-establish their reign of terror in Rome, and drive the weak and corrupt Romans to vote the deposition of the Pope and the annexation of the Papal states to the kingdom of Italy; then will be completed the spoliation of the vicar of Christ, not less by the cowardice and treachery of his friends than by the injustice and impiety of his foes; then will all the powers of hell be exerted anew to crush his spiritual supremacy. He will not have left whereon to lay his head. Like his Divine master, he will be loaded with insults and charged with crimes; he will be deprived of liberty—it may be of life. Such are the events which, in the ordinary course of human affairs, we may expect very soon to witness.”—Springfield Republican. A curious and not very satisfactory reason is given for the contentment of the English churchmen with existing evils. “A general expectation prevails among the clergy of the established church that the personal advent of the Lord Jesus is near at hand, and that all things must grow worse and worse till he comes; and, therefore, they acquiesce in “things as they are,” almost without a murmur.”—Ibid. Lady preachers are becoming popular. Two young ladies preached last Sunday at Washbourne Hall, Bayswater, on the coming of Christ. The dates fixed for the second advent are between 1870 and 1875.—London Correspondent of the N. Y. “Round Table.” France just now offers a promising field to the Second Adventists. The end of the world is a very popular topic. Even the skeptics are beginning to talk in a religious strain of “signs and tokens;” but their newly-found religion takes a very gloomy color. The continual rain, the extraordinary character of the late events in Germany, the disturbed condition of the continent, apparently pointing to further convulsions, the cholera, and the precarious state of the Emperor’s health, all contribute to the general depression, and induce some people to suppose that the end of things is approaching.—Ibid. Rev. Dr. C. B. Smyth of New York, preached a sermon on Fenianism, last Sunday, in which he said the Fenians were not organized to deliver Ireland, but for the great battle of Armageddon and the last struggle of Popery.—Ibid.